State Sign-Ups Vary - Health Care Edge: Brought to you by Pfizer RxPathways

FINAL OBAMACARE REPORT:.The biggest headlines in yesterday's enrollment report were things we already knew: About 8 million people nationwide picked plans through Obamacare's exchanges, and about 28 percent of them were young adults. That's a political success story for the White House, certainly, but on-the-ground success is really a question of state-by-state enrollment -- and there, the results varied wildly. Florida -- a pivotal state with a lot of uninsured residents -- had twice as many sign-ups as HHS initially projected, while a separate group of about 20 states fell short of HHS' goals. How each state shook out will be the key to Obamacare's next big challenge: 2015 premiums.

Top Health Care News

FULL OBAMACARE ENROLLMENT REPORT RELEASED: The total number of people who signed up for plans on the exchange is 8,019,763. Some 28 percent of those are ages 18-34. And 54 percent are female. Nearly 63 percent of those who reported their race and ethnicity are white.

Where Obamacare is strongest and where it is falling short: a look at the state-by-state numbers. (Sam Baker and Sophie Novack, National Journal)

Why Hispanics didn't get Obamacare: 10.7 percent of exchange applicants were Latino, according to HHS, but Latinos make up 1 in 4 of the nation's uninsured. (Clara Ritger, National Journal)

Late surge in sign-ups in hold-out states: the number of people enrolling in plans doubled in some of the states that didn't run their own marketplaces (Sandhya Somashekhar and Dan Keating, Washington Post)

Post-Enrollment

WHY DEMOCRATS SHOULDN'T BE CELEBRATING: The Affordable Care Act's enrollment numbers mean less about the midterms than Democrats think. "Things still look pretty awful for the party." (Charlie Cook, National Journal)

Surveys and Research

SURVEY: DOCTORS THINK PEERS PRESCRIBE UNNECESSARY CARE: "Three out of four physicians believe that fellow doctors prescribe an unnecessary test or procedure at least once a week, a survey released Thursday finds. The most frequent reasons that physicians order extraneous—and costly—medical care are fears of being sued, impulses to be extra careful and desires to reassure their own assessments of the patient, the survey said." (Jordan Rau, Kaiser Health News)

CONSIDERATIONS AND DEADLINES IN CHANGES TO ACA MARKETPLACE MODEL: "To transition from a federally run to a state-based or state-partnership marketplace, states must meet key deadlines this spring and establishment grants cannot be awarded after January 1, 2015. Conversely, states choosing to relinquish marketplace operation to the federal government must notify HHS at least 12 months in advance." (Sarah Dash and Amy Thomas, Commonwealth Fund)

Happening Today

JOBS REPORT: With health spending on the rise, today's the day to see how that pans out in jobs across the health care sector.